Abstract
James Martel’s book The Misinterpellated Subject is a book about much more than just interpellation and misinterpellation because it links these to representation, recognition, ideology, subjectivity, and resistance. The book is a continuation of themes that Martel pursued in his earlier work, and here too he is interested in the implications of political and philosophical anarchism for contemporary politics. To paraphrase him, his aim is to anarchize political theory all the way down.
Each chapter of the book is organized around a call, that is, an interpellation. Part I deals with what we would normally recognize as political texts and events, for instance, Louis Althusser’s theory of ideology and the role of interpellation in it; Frantz Fanon’s take on universal rights, race, and colonialism; the Haitian revolution at the turn of the nineteenth century; Woodrow Wilson’s call for national self-determination in 1918; and the Arab Spring in Tunisia. Part II deals with more philosophical and literary texts, among them Friedrich Nietzsche, Herman Melville’s Bartleby, Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, and Lars von Trier’s Breaking the Waves.
The Misinterpellated Subject is first and foremost a book about political subjectivity. Subjects are constituted as subjects and as particular subjects through interpellation in the Althusserian sense: we are “hailed” by ideological calls to obey the law, be productive at work, consume in our spare time, and so on. Althusser says that, nine times out of ten, interpellation is successful, and the subject is hailed, as when the policeman calls “Hey, you there!” Althusser leaves the matter at that, but Martel rightly points out that the one time out of ten when interpellation fails—this essential chance, or risk, of misinterpellation—must be included in any theorization of interpellation and of ideology, subjectivity, and resistance. These are the instances when someone answers a call by mistake, shows up in the wrong place, or just misunderstands the call. Misinterpellation happens, for instance, when the subject hailed by the policeman in the street does not turn around (or run away), but also when the Haitian revolutionaries are hailed by the universality of the Rights of Man even if that universality was not meant to include them.
Misinterpellation also happens when, in France, Fanon hears a call (“Look, a Negro!”) at odds with his self-understanding as a man of civilization. He is recognized as something other than he thought he was. He resists this call, yet does not have the power to simply reject it because the ideology of racism penetrates the society surrounding him. His position is also made difficult by the fact that the European universals (of Reason, the Rights of Man, and so on—and with which he identifies) automatically includes the colonial subject, which means that he cannot simply accept or reject those universals. Fanon struggles with being heard and seen as more than just this interpellated identity of “a Negro,” taking “a stance of refusal instead of mere rejection” (109) and saying at once “yes” and “no” (108). Neither blackness nor the European universals are unambiguous calls, but what starts as an “accidental” misinterpellation turns, for Fanon, into an opportunity to use misinterpellation more deliberately and as a source of resistance. Misinterpellation, then, becomes a source of resistance, even if an ambiguous source.
What makes this book so interesting is that Martel asks what happens in these instances. More generally, Martel is interested in the performative effects of misinterpellation. Misinterpellation must have a performative effect because interpellation is performative in that it constitutes—that is, brings about—subjects as subjects and as particular subjects (albeit not from scratch, and often through repetition). The question is, then, what kind of subjects misinterpellation constitutes. Martel is not only interested in that one time out of ten when interpellation misfires; he is also interested in what this essential chance, or risk, of misinterpellation means for how we think about what are, or appears to be, successful instances of interpellation.
“This is a disruption that throws us not into chaos but into a more radically contingent, agonal, and undetermined state,” he writes (53). Misinterpellation, then, is a key source of radical change. It is anarchist in that it can be used as a starting point for disrupting authority, and because it shows the subject to be always decentered and precarious. What is more, if there is a degree of misinterpellation inherent in any social and political practice, then resistance is always possible, and we do not have to wait for the revolution. Thus, Martel also believes that focusing on misinterpellation can help us anarchize how we think about time and agency. He examines easily visible instances of misinterpellation, but he does so in order to show how misinterpellation is an ever-present possibility and happens all the time. This takes focus away from extraordinary moments and actors, but in a way that helps us see possibilities for resistance and social change that would otherwise go unnoticed.
The Misinterpellated Subject contains rich and suggestive readings of texts, authors, and events, and it should be essential reading for anyone interested in (mis)interpellation, but should also be of interest for scholars working on ideology, subjectivity, recognition, representation, and resistance. However, there is a tension running through the book, and it is best summed up as whether interpellation is constitutive or not.
Martel encourages us to “[turn] from calls that interpellate us to calls that scatter and subvert” (8). Here and elsewhere, Martel seems to suggest that some forms of discourse interpellate (in the Althusserian sense) while others do not. The distinction between interpellation and misinterpellation is both analytical and normative. On the one side, we get a picture of interpellation, which is associated with arche, authority, and state institutions and, on the other side, misinterpellation, which is anarchic and “comes from within and beneath and among the communities and individuals in question” (29). However, this raises the question of how those “communities and individuals” are constituted as communities and as individuals in the first place. Presumably that only happens through interpellation—however precarious—but, in that case, interpellation and misinterpellation cannot simply be opposed.
In other places, Martel insists—with Althusser and Judith Butler—that interpellation is constitutive, and that we are always constituted as this or that subject. There is no subject beyond interpellation, in which case misinterpellation is not so much an alternative to interpellation as a general trait of interpellation. Put differently, all interpellative calls at once interpellate us and scatter and subvert our subjectivity: any call both interpellates and misinterpellates, and it is never simply one or the other. Martel also notes that interpellation is not a one-way street because it must be taken up or recognized (which is why interpellation can misfire): “interpellation and the consciousness that it produces work like a circuit and are hence not a unidirectional or hydraulic system. . . . [I]deology is not something that any one group owns or operates” (20). This takes some of the arche and sovereignty out of interpellation and of the structures, institutions, and agents that interpellate. And it means that the question is not one of interpellation or not, but of what kind of interpellation (and perhaps misinterpellation) we want.
This is where I was left looking for more. For instance, Martel writes: “If the production of authority is the critical factor in interpellation, the production of anti-authorities, the breakdown of processes of ideology and interpellation, is vital for any consideration of ongoing resistance” (21). This is just one example of where the book opens up different alternatives to interpellation as it currently functions. One possibility is to start from the ways in which misinterpellation undermines authority, but here we have to decide if we should think of misinterpellation as non-interpellation (i.e., as beyond interpellation), or as the precariousness of any interpellation (i.e., the inherent failure of any interpellation). If the latter, and if interpellation is constitutive, then misinterpellation needs to be combined with interpellation. One might imagine attempts to pluralize interpellations, thus dispersing authority and sovereignty (56); one might also stress the development of alternative and “better” interpellations (12). The book opens these possibilities, but it does not engage in a more systematic consideration of the assumptions behind these alternatives.
Related to this, Martel identifies a general problem with interpellation insofar as it involves ideology and the exercise of power. However, often he associates this with a particular historical society: “liberal capitalism,” “modern capitalism,” and “liberalism” are the terms he uses to refer to this society. Does that suggest that it is possible to imagine other forms of society without the ills of interpellation? It seems that, again, we are back to the question of whether interpellation is a general condition (i.e., constitutive) or associated with a particular kind of society and ideology. This is important for thinking about our alternatives: should we aim for different kinds of interpellation (taking advantage of misinterpellation), or should we avoid interpellation altogether?
This is related to the question of collective identities. Martel invokes a “we”: “an assortment of failed subjects” (31), and “a plethora of beings that cannot easily answer to one name” (270). This seems right: once we have accepted the constitutive character of misinterpellation, then we cannot take any “we” as a given. Martel also cites Black Lives Matter approvingly as a movement that struggles against oppressive interpellations: “Rather than continue to accept an interpellation of young African Americans as ‘thugs’ and ‘gangsters,’ Black Lives Matter asserts counteridentities” (94). Here we are dealing not with an alternative to interpellation, but an alternative to a particular interpellation, thus pitting one interpellation against another. What is missing is an account of the construction of collective identities. They are clearly there, but it is not clear what role they play, and what form they take in struggles against interpellations.
James Martel has given us a fine, well-written, and inspiring book, and I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone interested in subjectivity, ideology, recognition, representation, and resistance. Martel looks for the political in literature, and film, reading them as (also) political texts concerned with issues some of which we would usually recognize as political and others of which we might not, but which are resolutely political. As Martel writes, “the explicitly representational nature of these texts renders the operations of representation more vivid than they are in a ‘real’ life case” (133–34). With a nod to Deleuze and Guattari, Martel refers to his way of reading and writing as a “yet more minor literature” (25–27). By this, he understands a reading against interpellation, that is, against the way the author of a text would like us to read the text. The aim of doing so is to turn our attention away “from calls that interpellate us to calls that scatter and subvert” (8). You could also say that Martel wants us to read texts for misinterpellation because this is what shows us the possibilities opened up by misinterpellation: towards different interpellations, different kinds of interpellation, and the pluralization of interpellations. In this way, “reading through misinterpellation” (267) is also a political practice, and one can only agree with this.